Letter: We know our rights

James Solis
Pueblo West

Published: June 17, 2013;Last modified: June 17, 2013 10:08PM

Recently, (Tell it, May 19) Lee Sternal suggested supporters of the Sen. Angela Giron recall effort may be ignorant as to the recent gun legislation and Second Amendment jurisprudence. Accordingly, he informs us the legislation merely, and constitutionally, regulates gun ownership. We get that.

For clarity: We’re talking about “regulating ownership” of property the keeping and bearing of which is a right which shall not be infringed. One would think the Second Amendment says, “The right of government-approved people to keep and bear government-approved arms and related paraphernalia shall not be infringed.” What’s next? “Regulating ownership” of printing presses, paper and ink?

Additionally, Sternal proposes we should not read the Constitution apart from the court’s declaration of its meaning. Naturally.

How audacious to think people know what it means to have certain rights until the government against which they have these rights tells them, through its courts, what it means to have these rights and when government violates these rights.

Doubtless, if we’re ever told we may own only single-action six-shot revolvers and rubber bullets, that also will be acceptable. (On the subject of “meaning,” two words: “Plessy” and “Brown.”)

This recall is grounded in the awareness that the purpose of these “regulations” is to render firearms ownership so onerous as effectively to thwart the well-known purpose of the Second Amendment. You don’t have to ban something if you make ownership sufficiently difficult.

I wonder if Sternal would accept restrictive abortion laws because they merely “regulate” a woman’s ownership of her uterus. Don’t balk.

Michael Bloomberg wants to “regulate” New Yorkers’ ownership of their stomachs and lungs.